Circle of Blue’s senior editor starts his second of three weeks reporting in the field from China, where new infrastructure over the next five years will give a big boost to farming in China’s northeastern HeilongJiang Province.
Production, Water Savings, and a Heroic History on China’s State-owned Farms
By Keith Schneider
Tuesday, 05 June 2012 10:29
HONGXINGLONG, China — Just over year ago, I reported on the urgent water shortage developing in the Yellow River Basin, which lies to the west of Heilongjiang. The provinces of the Yellow River Basin produce 20 percent of the country’s grain and 70 percent of its coal, China’s primary source of energy.
Both sectors are the region’s largest water users. Both are also at significant risk of collapse, because climate change is steadily reducing levels of rain and snowfall and draining freshwater reserves. The map below shows water allocations for the Basin’s nine provinces.
By 2020, without significant water conservation initiatives — and as China’s demand for energy and food increases — we at Circle of Blue, along with the China Environment Forum, concluded that there would be a damaging gap in the Basin’s available freshwater supply amounting to 20 billion cubic meters (5.3 trillion gallons). In other words, farmers and energy producers will be 20 billion cubic meters short of the water they need to operate.
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